Got Oxygen? (My trip to CO)

I went there to visit my friend F who moved to Denver over a year ago and to do the Bolder Boulder 10K (a 10k with 50 thousand people… can you imagine??).

When I asked my cardiologist last year about visiting/running there, he said no… so I was a little worried about how the altitude would play with my heart. But, somehow, I had no problems, nothing, even when we got to the top of Pikes Peak, a fourteener (14,115 feet) in the front range of the Rocky Mountains, which was obviously, gorgeous! You can see a picture of it from our drive there.

You can drive your car up the mountain, or take the cog railroad operating from Manitou Springs, a gorgeous town with a couple of surprises!

So, this is the train you hop on to get to the top of the Pikes Peak, making a turn into nothingness…

I saw this and thought of the Leadville Trail 100 race! I had to get a picture!

Oh, I saw people running there!! I wanted to jump out of the train and follow them! And… I learned there’s a marathon up the mountain… I might have to think this one a bit with that altitude, it might be “hard”… These are a couple of pictures I got from the train ride.

And these are taken when at the top, with a bit of temperature change!

We also visited the Garden of the Gods, a public park with horizontal sandstones formations. You can rock climb, hike, and why not, run there!

We also went to Frisco, a gorgeous town at 9 thousand feet elevation with sailboats.

And here’s a why we went there: a delicious pulled pork sandwich! And you thought it was for the views, puh-lease… 😉

Another place we visited: Red Rocks, a park with large red (duh!) sandstones that holds an amphitheatre. See the amphitheatre there?

Amazing place… but there was a concert going on so the only way to get up there was to hike up this dusty trail… I am not sure if you can see how uphill this was in the picture….

I had never seen anything so steep and so many people sliding down. It made for a fun story and a few reddish spots!

We did spend time in Denver too, meeting up with friends, eating, and other random stuff…I did say “random”…. I love cows, usually on my plate (hey I AM Argentinian after all!)but this one wasn’t moving so it was fine too!

My best friend, a blue bear. I was a bit obsessed with it!
I had an amazing time, I get why my friend moved there… There’s so many great places to run on and the weather was just fantastic the whole time I was there. This is definitely heaven for the outdoorsy people: you have everything! Water rafting, hiking, rock climbing, trail running, sailing, anything and that weather…. I want to go back right now!